The Emotional Recession: Trillions of Dollars, Trillions of Heavy Days
The emotional recession is making every interaction harder. Discover five EQ strategies to rebuild resilience, trust, and connection at work and beyond.
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CEO at Six Seconds
Joshua is a cofounder and ceo of the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network. He is a Master Certified Coach (ICF), and the third of his 7 books is the international best-seller, At the Heart of Leadership. He's passionate about the spark that ignites at intersection of compassion and purpose.
Latest posts by Joshua Freedman (see all)
Beyond Individual Identity: A Social Approach to Coaching Self Awareness and 360 Feedback
Transform how you coach self awareness with this social approach that helps clients move beyond binary thinking. Includes practical 3-step framework, case study, and coaching tools for handling 360 feedback resistance.
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Emotions As a Motivation Supercharger: 3 Essential Questions to Feel Motivated
What makes motivation… motivating? Three powerful questions, a free worksheet, and powerful ways to strengthen energy from within (which we all need, especially when work/life feels challenging)
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The Motivation Iceberg: 3 Tips to Unleash Motivation
How do you use emotional intelligence to fuel lasting motivation? The Motivation Iceberg is a simple, clear model for understanding how to motivate – even in WFH during a pandemic.
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How to Control Emotions Without Shutting Them Down: A 3-Step Process That Actually Works, and the Neuroscience Behind the Technique
How can you control your emotions without shutting them down? The answer is Navigating Emotions. Discover a science-backed 3-step VET method to manage emotions with emotional intelligence, reduce reactivity, and build resilience. Based on neuroscience and the Adaptive Theory of Emotions.
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3 Practical Steps to Build Optimism Skills in a Time of Uncertainty
Learn how to build optimism as a skill using a simple 3-bridge model. Backed by new research, this article shows why optimism is essential for resilience, innovation, and emotional wellbeing in today’s uncertain world.
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Integrated Emotions: Feelings Are Allies
What if all our feelings had value? Many people see emotions as “good” or “bad” — which leaves us in a constant state of internal struggle against our own feelings. Here’s a framework to rethink feelings as valuable signals about what’s important.
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The Six Seconds Model of Emotional Intelligence: What It Is and How to Use It (+ PDF)
What is emotional intelligence and how do you practice it? Explore the Six Seconds Model of Emotional Intelligence to improve your life and relationships.
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How Emotional Intelligence Creates Transformation: Theory of Change Research
Research: How do people start learning emotional intelligence… and what happens? The Theory of Change creates a framework for transformation fuelled by authentic, purposeful connection.
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AI Fakes It: Good Leaders Keep It Real
We tested top GenAI models’ emotional intelligence—what we found reveals insights that every leader needs to know and will change the way you lead in an AI-powered world.
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The Wrong Time To Coach: What is the Most Effective Approach for Your Next 1:1?
As a manager, the coach-approach isn’t always the right path. How do you decide when to use a coaching style, or something else in your one-to-one?
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How Emotional Intelligence Coaches Use Emotions in Goal Setting
Goal setting is central to coaching – but most coaches rush this process and take the surface answer as if it’s the client’s real goal. Here’s how emotions help get to the deeper goals.
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3 Winning Strategies for Successful Change Leadership: Coaching with Emotional Intelligence
Can coaching tools help you lead successful organizational change? Here’s how to build team ownership and drive better outcomes by applying emotional intelligence for a coaching mindset.
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3 Emotional Intelligence Tips for the Essence of Coaching
When is less, more? Inspired by a stunning experience earlier this year at Six Seconds’ Emotional Intelligence Master Coach Certification, here’s how to “Marie Kondo” coaching to distill down to the essence.
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Emotional Intelligence + Coaching = ? How EQ makes coaching work better
How do emotional intelligence and coaching go together to create a framework for transformation? Examining ‘what is coaching,’ why clients seek coaching, and ‘what is emotional intelligence,’ a story emerges about how we meet the moment more effectively.
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Coaching Through the Emotional Recession: Three Practical Tips for Trauma-Informed Coaching
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in March 2021, “When there is mass trauma, it affects communities for many years to come.” While coaching isn’t a “treatment” for trauma, in the Emotional Recession we’re facing now, chances are, your clients, colleagues, and you are carrying more trauma than 4 years ago. What do we do as coaches?
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Knowing Isn’t Coaching: Three Emotional Intelligence Tools for Professional Coaches
Here’s how to use emotional intelligence to break out of a fixed mindset of “knowing the answer” and make your own (difficult) emotions an ally as a coach.
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Coaching Down the Escalator: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips for Coaches to Reduce Volatility & De-escalate Conflict in a Polarized World
As people become more volatile around us, our brains’ natural response is to also become more reactive. Coaching provides a perfect opportunity to step out of this cycle of escalation, but it’s a difficult emotional puzzle; here’s a map of the process with three emotional intelligence tips for coaches.
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Dr. Daniel Goleman Explains the History of Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman explains the history of emotional intelligence – and why EQ is important in business, education & life.
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The Upside of Uncertainty: Neuroscience for Coaching
How bad is uncertainty for you, for your clients, for the world? Uncertainty is a problematic feeling – yet it’s also essential in coaching because it signals learning and growth. Here’s how.
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What’s Missing in Climate Discussions? The Power of Emotions
Solving the climate crisis requires people to connect, collaborate, innovate, and take inspired action — all of which are driven by emotion. Here’s how two of the world’s largest organizations in renewable energy worked with Six Seconds to harness emotions and support young leaders.
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The Neuroscience of Chai: Overcoming My Own Obstinance
Why do we sometimes take risks to learn, but other times we’re so determined to stay “right”? Zooming into the neurobiology, in a sense we have a tug-of-war between the striatum and the amygdala, between opportunity and risk. It’s just like trying Chai for the first time on the steamy streets of Kuala Lumpur.
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When Change Fails: Tips for Coaching with Emotional Intelligence
Sometimes change is easy, but when we get stuck, big, difficult feelings emerge. While some coaches are ill-equipped to engage those challenging feelings, it’s a prime opportunity for transformational coaching.
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The Neuroscience of Change: How to Make New Year’s Resolutions Stick
Why do New Year’s resolutions nearly always fail? And what can we do to make them stick? Explore the neuroscience of change and motivation.
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Goalsetting That Works: Three Coaching Tools to Leverage the Neuroscience of Emotion
Drawing on neuroscience of change, how can we use emotional intelligence coaching for setting goals in a way that will help make change happen better? Please a fantastic goalsetting tool (that’s free for now!)
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Honing Intuition as Coaches: Emotional Intelligence from the Tao te Ching
How does your own awareness affect your clients’ awareness? We’ll dive into ICF competency #7, but focusing on honing our intuition as coaches.
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Glimmers of Purpose: 3 Emotional Intelligence Tips for Coaching on Purpose in a Short-Term World
Bad news: Globally, sense of purpose is declining. Good news: Using emotional intelligence in coaching, we can magnify and brighten the glimmers of purpose
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Why ‘I Have to Change’ is a Coaching Red Flag – 3 Solutions from Emotional Intelligence
When a coaching client says, ‘I have to change’ it raises a crucial question: Who’s driving the change process? Here’s a new way of using the Prochaska & DiClemente Stages of Change model and coaching strategies to make change more effective.
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The New Energy Crisis – People at Work (or Not)
The brutal fact: People are disengaging because companies are failing their people. How can companies do better?
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Getting Off the Trouble Train
“Have you ever found yourself in the middle a situation and you know it will to turn into a big mess? You can feel it slipping out of control… and yet you keep going. It’s as if you’re being pushed along this track; you know it’s going to lead to trouble, but it seems like there’s no choice.”
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Decoding Emotions
Smarter About Feelings: Part Two . Part One introduced the idea of becoming smarter about feelings — and how that can help you (kids) get more of what you want… and less of what you don’t want! In that article I promised that I’d also write more about emotions and the meaning behind our feelings. […]
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Smarter About Feelings
When I was a kid, no one taught me about emotions. They’re so powerful! And such a big part of our lives… here are the most important ideas every kid (and adult) needs to know about feelings.
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3 Coaching Tools for Shifting Out of Problematic Patterns
When coaching clients say, “I KNOW this, but I’m still having trouble changing…” Here’s what drives that system, and simply effective tools to get unstuck.
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12 Practical Tips for Emotional Wellbeing by Being Smarter with Feelings
Are you fighting against your own feelings? There’s a better way to handle emotions to support wellbeing — 12 easy ways to practice emotional intelligence
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3 Neuroscience Tips to Coach Like a Vacation – Coaching with Emotional Intelligence
Did you know that people are much more likely to change habits when they are on vacation? From the neuroscience of change & uncertainty, 3 tips to improve coaching with emotional intelligence
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How Much of the $1.8T Are You Losing? 4 Steps to Increase Engagement and Reduce Turnover with Emotional Intelligence
Stop wasting money and learn how to leverage emotional intelligence for better results. Here’s a 4-step plan to get started.
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How Are You Feeling About Feelings? Coaching with Emotional Intelligence
EQ Coaches value all emotions as resources that provide insight and energy. But that doesn’t mean we “make” clients talk about feelings. In fact, often words get in the way of understanding emotions.
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EQ Coaching Insights: are lazy coaches better?
As emotional intelligence coaches, should we “work harder” — or will be more effective following the ‘lazy coaching’ trick?
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How Do You Want Your Students to Feel? Emotional Intelligence Tips for Teaching in 2023
Learning is both an emotional and rational process. How do we blend the two? Here is a map teachers and trainers can use to bring head and heart together in learning.
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Coaching Optimism & Purpose: 3 Profound Questions to Fuel Energy for a Better Future
When clients are ‘in the swirl’ and depleted, how do coaches reconnect optimism and purpose to reignite the spark of bigger vision?
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